High-tech solution prevents whale entanglements in shark nets

Contributed: Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation

New acoustic alarms aimed at reducing whale entanglements are being fitted to shark nets between Mackay in north Queensland and the Gold Coast in the state's south-east this week.

The alarms will be in place until the end of November to coincide with the southern whale migration.

Queensland Shark Control Program manager Tony Ham says the so-called pingers are designed to alert whales to the location of the nets.

"They're there to make the nets stand out from the background noise of the ocean," he said.

"If you take the Gold Coast for instance where you've got a lot of surf on the beach, a lot of boats, a lot of car traffic, all of that tends to make the washing noise of the nets disappear in the background noise.

"So these are there to make them stand out so that the whales will hear them and then have an opportunity to assess the situation and avoid the nets."

Mr Ham says the durability of the alarms was recently tested in the water for 45 days.

"We'll probably put five on each net and that will obviously make them very acoustically significant in the water," he said.